Blackout dates

I called early this afternoon to cash in some of my miles and get a free Acela ticket. As it turns out, February 17 – 20 are “blackout” dates during which time you cannot cash in miles for travel. Furthermore, the friendly agent told me that even during non-blackout times, the only “times” you could get tickets on Acela trains were during non-rush-hour times. In other words, between 10 AM and 2 PM or after 6 PM. It makes me wonder why I joined this mileage program to begin with. In any event, I bought my Acela ticket ($168 one way) and now I’m all set.

I put gas in the car on the way home today, finally. When I started the car at the Metro station, the “low fuel” light came on and I figured I’d better not risk it any further. So the record now stands at 47 days between refuelings. That’s not too bad.

It remained pretty cold today and not a whole lot of the snow melted. There is no snow on roads or sidewalks, but the cooler, grassy areas (like my front and back yards) are still more or less covered in snow. The forecast is for warmer temperature (in the upper 50s) Wednesday thru Friday (with some showers on Friday) so I imagine much of the snow will melt at that time.